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World Business Quick Take

■ Dell computer
No rebound in spending
Dell Computer Corp, the world's second-biggest maker of personal computers, said spending for PCs and related products isn't rebounding. "We're still not seeing an uptick in the overall market," Chief Financial Officer James Schneider said at the Morgan Stanley Semiconductor and Systems Conference in Dana Point, California. "Dell is still in the strongest competitive position." Estimates that Dell executives have seen for industrywide sales growth this year are about 5 percent, Schneider said in a speech broadcast over the Internet. Last week, Chief Executive Michael Dell said even a resolution of the US-Iraq weapons dispute wouldn't revive corporate spending on computers. Dell predicted growth will be "fairly moderate or flat this year."

■ Google
Ad strategy expanded
Google Inc will expand a one-year old program to deliver content-targeted advertisements on other publishers' Internet sites, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site. The program will deliver third-party advertisements that are related in content to a Web site that an Internet user is viewing, the newspaper said, citing the company. Google, which already sells advertisements on its own Web site, may announce the new product as early as today, the newspaper said. The program utilizes technology to match advertisements with the specific content of a Web site in cases where it isn't possible to target advertisements using a specific search query, the Journal said.

■ Labor unions
Broadway musicians upset
Computers are slated to replace musicians in Broadway shows, prompting a union representing musicians to call for a strike that, if it materializes, could lead to a cancellation of most of Broadway's biggest shows. At issue is a plan to reduce the number of musicians at musicals to seven at most, down from 24 to 26. The strike is scheduled to begin tomorrow. Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theatres and Producers, said that tests with pre-recorded orchestra tapes showed that computers could technically replace all live musicians, saving theatres millions of dollars. He called the reduction to seven musicians a compromise. American Federation of Musicians President Bill Moriarity said a strike would not only be about the loss of jobs.

■ Tax policy
HK considers increase
Hong Kong is likely to face higher taxes on profits and salaries, the first increases in almost two decades, as the government uses tomorrow's budget to try to plug a record deficit, executives and analysts said. Financial Secretary Antony Leung may raise profit tax by two percentage points to 18 percent and salaries tax by one point to 16 percent, KPMG International said. The government, which last raised taxes in 1984-1985, has signaled the deficit may rise as high as HK$70 billion (US$9 billion) for the year to March 31, the product of two years of anemic economic growth. Tax increases aren't likely to jolt financial markets because the government has been saying for months that revenue-raising steps are likely. "I don't think the market is going to like higher taxes very much but there's an air of realism," said Percy Weatherall, managing director of Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd.
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